Over the last few games, Downing seems to have found some form and while not electrifying, has played his part over the last few weeks. So the poll is to gauge fellow reds views on what to do with this enigmatic player. 1. Sell for anything 2. Only sell for an offer of over £12m 3. Keep him until summer to see if his form improves/continues Over to you!
I think he should still go. If anything, I think he is playing for the move. He has been pretty good, granted but it;s not good enough for us to get a top 4 spot. However, I don't think selling him in January is smart - we have a pretty thin squad, especially down the left with Enrique out now. We should hold off until the summer ...
agree with jimmy, love for him to go as he hasn't done enough in a red shirt for me, but i don't want another Carroll situation where we let the player go and then find we didn't get someone else in and been shafted again, as lets be honest we have relied on Suarez for a lot of our goals. wait until Summer, or we will sell him for even less if he goes in Jan, and be no value in that for us.
I let him go if we could get someone equally as good or better who is younger, for the same price.Thing is I be amazed if anyone came in with a bid of £6m or over this Jan, so I think he will stay If someone offere £10m I snatch there f**kin hand off, his value will now only decline
I agree Unless we get a stupid offer (which we won't) the squad's too thin to shift him yet. Keep hold for now and see where we're at in the summer. If he keeps up his current half decent form we'll still get the same for him in the summer and gives us more time to decide on a replacement and probably get them cheaper than in Jan anyway.
Imagine this scenario. We sell Downing and a few of our forward players get medium/long term injuries. Enrique is already injured. We'd be pretty stuck.
my opinion is he is way to negative and is always looking for the back or side pass rather than take on a man. not a wingers attitude IMO.... bad buy but option b, sell for the right value, which was what we should have paid max in the first place! I also agree with Daydo... have a replacement lined up, one out one in....... thats eminantly sensible.
I get that this is hypothetical, but is anybody buying Downing for £12m really a realistic option? I can't think of anyone stupid enough to offer that, especially when there are cheaper alternates.
Stoke hopefully lol. i can only see £5 mill for him to be honest, or what clubs are prepared to pay for him, which i doubt would be much more than that.
I think he could still go for about £7-8m but that is at a push. The key element is that we will be shifting around £80k a week in his wages.
He's improving lately; I say keep him, try and coax good performances out of him to push his value up for the summer whatever the incentive is, either saying he can move to a new club come July/August or will have increased relevance in the team. We also retain some depth in the squad. Can't believe I've just written that since he's been a waste of a decent shirt most of the time.
Recently he has flattered to deceive. His performances of late have looked good cause he's shied away from actually doing much with the ball. The form of the rest of the team carries him. Yesterday for example he ran with the ball, with Shelvey open and clear through in acres of space. He instead decided to go around a defender and go for glory himself. He failed. Commentator: "Fantastic effort by Downing, it was worth the effort". 4 or 5 okay performances is not enough to erase the memory of how much time and effort we've wasted on him. For every decent performance there have been 5 **** performances. We shouldn't have to mollycoddle him. We should not have had to give him a season and a half to adapt, to make everything perfect for poor little Stewart. Why has it taken him until he was about to be dropped and sold to start trying in matches? Attitudes like that scream "I'm bigger than the club, **** you, pay me". Maybe if his recent performances were Messiesque, then fine. But they haven't been. They've been decent at best but since most people are desperate to see him succeed, every okay touch becomes a good one. Against Stoke he was abysmal as usual. Against QPR his backpass trapped him and a defender in the corner, exposing the central defence to save his mistake. After a few cheeky attempts to get the other defender to play it out he boots it under pressure. What does the commentator say? "Brilliant defensive work from Downing to clear the ball out". Sell him, buy a cheaper, younger, hungrier replacement. We will inevitably take a loss on him. Better to swallow our medicine now and get a younger winger who will fight from the start than later.
Id say keep him for depth, but if theres 12 million then take it, but i would be very surprised indeed if anyone was willing to pay that.... but even if we did get 12 million, it would be pointless without getting someone else in to take his place, especially considetring Enriques injury. Just to make it clear though I do not think 12 million is realistic (hence why I would accept it)
Half decent performances of late? He's been doing the same thing as the last eighteen months but a goals and assists, I say thats the luck of the draw myself! Too little, too late. Get rid in the summer, now if we can get someone else in!
If we got 12 million pounds, that is just about enough to land isco or benat. ( both have buyout classes of about 17 mil euros).
